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Monday, March 30, 2009

Good Morning China!

You Tiao, known in English as Chinese cruller, is a fried bread stick. The dough is made into a long strip, deep fried and eaten for breakfast or lunch. It can be lightly salted and it is often dipped in soy milk.I browsed through different recipes and strangely enough, all of them require powdered ammonia. Why?? I'm guessing it's used as a dough improver of some kind, anyhow, I decided I would go on, minus ammonia. These turned out delicious!

Here's my simplified version of the recipe:

You Tiao - Chinese Crullers350 g of flour1 teaspoon of baking powder1/2 teaspoon of sugar2 teaspoons of instant yeast1 teaspoon of salt250 ml of water

Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl, add lukewarm water and mix until there are no more dry bits of flour. Turn into a lightly floured surface and start kneading for about 10 minutes, or until the dough is smooth and elastic. If it's too sticky, sprinkle with a little flour.

Shaping the dough is a little tricky to explain, but I got a little help from this video on Youtube. As an end note, do not let the dough rise again after the final shaping (stretching), otherwise, the strip will rip.

It turned out really tasty and the kids loved it!I served it with warm strawberry flavored soy milk.These You Tiao also doubled as a snack in the afternoon!